Chapter 625: Chapter-625
But the toll on her physical body was devastating.
By the evening of the second day, Heena could no longer stand without leaning heavily against the map table. Her vision frequently doubled, and a constant, agonizing ringing echoed in her ears.
"Host, please," the System begged, its digital voice thick with genuine distress as it watched her forcefully swallow another handful of strong painkillers. "Your blood pressure is spiking. The clot is expanding. If you keep pushing your brain this hard, you are going to hemorrhage before the scholar even gets back!"
Heena gripped the edge of the table, her knuckles white, waiting for the latest wave of dizziness to pass.
’I have to finish this,’ Heena gritted out internally, cold sweat dampening her brow. ’The trap is set. We execute it at dawn.’
On the morning of the third day, the capital awoke to absolute, ground-shaking chaos.
Just before sunrise, a badly beaten, terrified Lord Jin was unceremoniously dumped right on the front steps of the Imperial Palace. Pinned to his torn silk robes was a thick stack of letters.
The Imperial Guards immediately dragged him inside, and within an hour, the Emperor summoned an emergency morning court.
The Great Hall was a sea of panicked whispers. The civil officials, usually so arrogant and composed, were sweating bullets.
Sitting on the golden throne, the Emperor played his part with terrifying, flawless perfection. He slammed the forged letters down onto his desk, his voice roaring with the wrath of the legendary Seventh Prince.
"TREASON!" the Emperor bellowed, his killing intent suffocating the entire hall. "The Vice Minister of Revenue’s own flesh and blood, caught conspiring with the Northern Barbarians! Selling imperial grain to fund an armed rebellion against my throne!"
Below the dais, the Vice Minister of Revenue collapsed to his knees, his face the color of ashes. He slammed his forehead against the marble floor, weeping hysterically.
"Your Majesty! It is a lie! A frame-up!" the Vice Minister screamed, absolute terror ripping through his chest. "My son is an idiot and a fool, but he is no rebel! He does not have the intelligence to contact the Barbarians!"
"The letters bear his exact seal and handwriting!" the Emperor roared, drawing his imperial sword and pointing it directly at the trembling minister. "Guards! Arrest the Vice Minister! Execute his entire household for high treason by noon!"
"No! Wait!"
The Vice Minister shrieked, completely losing his mind as the heavily armored Imperial Guards marched forward to drag him away.
Heena’s psychological trap snapped perfectly shut.
The Vice Minister was a greedy, corrupt man, but he wasn’t a rebel. Faced with the immediate, brutal extermination of his entire family line for a crime he didn’t commit, his paranoid brain scrambled for the only possible lifeline. He had to prove his son was just stealing money for prostitutes and gambling, not funding a war. He had to prove exactly where the missing grain went.
"Your Majesty! I can prove it!" the Vice Minister sobbed, desperately clinging to the Emperor’s boots. "The grain wasn’t sold to the Barbarians! It was sold to the southern merchants! I have the records! The real records! I kept them hidden!"
The entire Great Hall fell deathly silent.
The civil officials stared in sheer horror as the Vice Minister of Revenue, in his blind panic to save his own neck from a treason charge, publicly confessed to mass embezzlement and offered up the very ledger that would hang them all.
Sitting on his throne, the Emperor slowly lowered his sword. A dark, imperceptible smirk touched the corner of his lips.
Brilliant, Heena, the Emperor thought. Absolutely brilliant.
Hundreds of miles away, in the freezing, remote mountains, Samuel sat perfectly still on a prayer mat inside the Vanguard ancestral temple.
The incense burned slowly, filling the cold air with a thick, herbal scent. He held a string of wooden prayer beads, looking like the perfect, devoted husband seeking the heavens’ blessing.
Whoosh.
A shadow dropped silently from the rafters, landing on one knee just outside the temple doors.
"Speak," Samuel commanded smoothly, not opening his eyes.
"Master," the shadow guard reported, his voice filled with awe. "The capital is in utter chaos. Lord Jin was dumped at the palace gates. The Emperor threatened to execute the Vice Minister for treason. In a panic, the Vice Minister surrendered the hidden black-market ledger to the throne to save his life. The Ministry of Revenue is completely falling apart."
Samuel’s prayer beads stopped moving.
He slowly opened his golden eyes. A profound, dark realization washed over him. He knew immediately that the Emperor hadn’t orchestrated this. The Emperor didn’t have the delicate, sociopathic finesse to forge letters and psychologically corner a minister like that.
This was Heena’s work.
"And my wife?" Samuel asked, his voice deathly quiet. "What is she doing?"
"The Madam has not left the estate, Master," the guard replied quickly. "But... the Vanguard generals are deeply concerned. Our spies inside the manor report that the Madam collapsed in the hallway this morning. The estate doctors have been rushing in and out of her chambers for hours."
Samuel’s blood turned to absolute ice.
His brilliant mind violently snapped the pieces together. The desperate, frantic speed of this political takedown. Her insistence on sending him away so he couldn’t interfere. Her sudden collapse.
She wasn’t just pulling a political maneuver. She was racing against a clock.
Samuel stood up, the prayer beads snapping in his fist, scattering across the stone floor. The devoted, gentle husband vanished, entirely replaced by a terrifying, furious predator.
"Ready my fastest horse," Samuel ordered, his golden eyes burning with absolute, murderous panic. "We are riding back to the capital. Now."
.
.
.
The immediate aftermath of the Ministry of Revenue’s collapse was exactly as chaotic as Heena had anticipated. But by orchestrating the downfall of the Vice Minister, she hadn’t just removed a corrupt official—she had violently kicked a hornet’s nest.
For generations, the Vanguard family’s survival in the treacherous capital was largely due to one golden rule: they stayed out of civil court politics. They bled on the battlefield, protected the borders, and let the scholars squabble over taxes and poetry. The civil officials feared their military might, but they never considered the Vanguards a political threat.
Until now.
Heena had hidden her tracks flawlessly. The forged letters were untraceable, and her spies had vanished back into the shadows. But the old, shrewd bastards of the civil court were not entirely stupid. They had eyes everywhere, and it didn’t take a genius to follow the motive. The embezzled grain belonged to the Northern Army. The only faction that directly benefited from the Vice Minister’s sudden, spectacular execution was the Vanguard family.
For the first time in imperial history, the keen, paranoid eyes of the entire civil court turned toward the heavily fortified gates of the Vanguard estate. The old foxes were digging, whispering, and sharpening their knives.
Inside her private bedchamber, Heena slowly opened her eyes.
A blinding, white-hot spike of agony immediately shot through her skull. It felt as though someone had driven a rusted iron nail directly behind her right eye. She didn’t scream, but a harsh, ragged gasp escaped her lips as she blindly reached out, her trembling fingers wrapping around a small porcelain bottle on her nightstand.
She popped the cork with her thumb, poured three heavy, bitter painkillers into her palm, and swallowed them dry.
"Host..." the System whispered, manifesting as a dim, flickering blue light near her pillow. Its usual energetic snark was entirely gone, replaced by profound anxiety. "Your vitals are dropping. You shouldn’t be moving."
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